- by Chris Mortley

Following the season's climax, the majority of the Doncaster Rovers players now take their well-earned holidays; however one man whose holiday is on hold for the time being is Rovers head physio John Dickens.

John has been one of the busiest members of staff at the Club this season, after the first team squad endured a freak season of long-term injuries - however there is still plenty of work to be done to ensure that the players will be fit and raring to go at the beginning of next term.

The Rovers physio delivers the latest news regarding the injured Rovers players...

"It's certainly been a busy season," confesses John.

"It's been an unfortunate one for the Club and a very difficult one for Sean (O'Driscoll), in terms of the players he has had available at different times."

"If we look at the situation as we are at the end of the season, George Friend went into hospital earlier in the week to have a hernia repair. That shouldn't be a problem and he should be fit in three or four weeks, then ready for a holiday before pre-season starts. George has been playing with the double hernia, which can make it worse - it would get gradually worse the more you play. But George has done really well and kept going. We've managed it and to have a player with George's attitude, it makes it much easier."

"We are deciding at the moment whether Shelton Martis should have an ankle operation. We're taking some advice from the surgeon and we will make the decision in the next couple of days. His ankle has been a problem and it's one of those situations where it is a very close call as to whether the surgeon will go in and repair it, or whether to just strengthen it through the pre-season. The problem is; if we do strengthen it through pre-season and it does break down, he'll be out for four months - so you have to balance these things up. You obviously can't force a player to have surgery and there is no point in going in for surgery if you can rehabilitate an injury, but it will be a close call."

"James Chambers is rehabilitating from his knee surgery well. He's only eight weeks into a six-to-nine month period, so it is very early days. So far, so good."

"Martin Woods is recovering well from hip surgery and, again, he is in his early days of rehabilitation. He's doing well so far and we have a follow-up appointment at the end of May and we can hopefully progress his rehabilitation from there."

"Brian Stock underwent ankle surgery earlier in the week and this is going to be a long job I'm afraid. We're looking at a six-month period for Brian. It's a serious injury and we are hoping that it will go well. We won't know the full extent of the injury until he has had the surgery, but it will be at least a six-month job. We knew that he was suffering with the problem and we took advice. We knew we could keep strengthening the ankle through the season and we knew that at the end of the season, we would have to have something done. It's as we expected, but like a lot of these things, until you look inside the joint, you don't know exactly what's going on and no surgeon does. We know enough to know that he does need a reconstruction and it's a case of not knowing how long he will be out for until we know how badly injured the joint is. We won't know that until it is done. He won't be ready for the start of the season."

"Steve Brooker has just had ankle surgery on his other ankle this time. He's been getting by with the ankle problem for the last three months. He's had the surgery, but he is going to be out for three months. We have to rehabilitate him through the summer and we'll see where we go from there."

"Billy Sharp returned to playing on Saturday. He did very well and he's had no problems so far. We will have a further appointment with the specialist to make sure that everything is okay - and we'll take it from there."

"Adam Lockwood is recovering from knee surgery. He is two months into a six-to-nine month period and is recovering well. He is working very hard and all is going well so far."

"Ryan Mason has returned to Spurs after suffering an ankle injury in training last week. It's an injury to his ankle ligaments and we are waiting to hear from Spurs the extent of the injury."

"Joseph Mills returned to Southampton with a hamstring problem which was more or less resolved. We're just waiting for Southampton to confirm that."

"James Coppinger missed the game against Middlesbrough with a calf strain and that will settle down without any problem at all."

"Dennis Souza missed the final game of the season with a medial ligament injury to his knee. That's not too bad. It's a grade one injury, so it will settle down in four to six weeks. We're not envisaging any problems."

"Paul Keegan is recovering well from his cartilage surgery. He's going to be another two or three weeks rehabbing and we don't envisage any problems after that."

"Ryan Burge has been out for two weeks after coming back from Oxford United with a knee injury. We'll continue to assess that and it's settling down well, but there is a possibility that he will need more rest and treatment on it before we can allow him to go off for the end of the season."

"Gary Woods is in a boot after suffering a stress response to his fibula, which is the start of a stress fracture. He's in a boot for another three weeks and he will be assessed by the specialist after that. Normally, these things with the right rest and care will settle down."